Brendan Cosplay – Planning

With Babels going as Salamence and my Lucas costume being a bit well-worn, I’ve decided its time for a new Pokémon trainer costume. Since Salamence originated in Ruby and Sapphire, I’m going to go as Brendan, the male trainer from the games.In the past, I’ve created a bunch of cosplays with lots of help from my wife. She’s still helping this time, but I’m intent on sewing some of the costume together. With a cosplay selected, it’s time to start planning.

Step one is to gather lots of reference pictures. Pokémon has a large and vibrant fanbase that is resourceful. At Bulbapedia, the goto wiki for Pokémon, there is a well-research article on Brendan including artwork and sprites from the original games and the remakes. Since I’m using the character from the remakes, Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, there is a 3D model extracted from the games.

With references acquired, its time to break down the costume into essentials, nice-to-haves and extraneous pieces. For Brendan, I picked the hat and shirt as essentials. As far as Pokémon trainers go, they are the distinctive parts of his outfit. The shorts, pokéball and mega bracelet are nice-to-haves. Given that I’m likely to be toting around a baby Salamence, the backpack is extraneous. I’m also placing the shoes in the extraneous category, any pair of sneakers will suffice. Also, a few non-featured additions, a set of Hoenn League badges will be a nice touch and considered an essential. An updated Hoenn pokédex will make the nice-to-haves list.

After assigning each of the pieces of the costume a category, it’s time to decide how to make or acquire each of the pieces. Given the uniquness of the hat and shirt, I’ll be sewing these myself. I’ll illustrate a Salamencite Mega Stone as a watch face for my Apple Watch and if there’s enough time, I’ll build the Pokédex myself. The shorts are generic enough to be purchased. I’ll pick up a new watch band that’s closer in color to the Mega Bracelet. Finally, I’ll buy the Hoenn League badges like I did for Lucas.